“[Parliament] should be unsurprised that agencies use their powers to the limit. If I were working for MI5, MI6 or GCHQ, I would use every power that I was given to the limit, just as I would if I were a policeman," he added. "The tendency is to stretch the limits or for those limits gradually to move.” …. Tory MP David Davis

Methinks it should most definitely be the case, for if it is not then surely are security services rendered quite farcical, that if I were working for MI5, MI6 or GCHQ/FSB/NSA/Mossad/PLA Unit 61398 etc., I would use every power that can be thought of, and can be securely and/or secretly enabled to the limit and beyond, in order to achieve and maintain an overwhelming advantage. And those sorts of powers are invariably never given, they are ones which one assumes and activates with practically/virtually everyone presuming such a facility and capability, virtually/practically impossible and most improbable.

And indeed, in deed, it would not be wrong to view them as Special Powers.

Writing yourself an exclusion is illegal as far as I am concerned and as such should be ignored. .... Anonymous Coward

Quite so, AC. And availing oneself of such a provision conveniently indelibly marks one as a person of particular and peculiar interest to leading secret security authorities and virtual protection services.

Is it imagined anywhere that the likes of MI5/MI6/GCHQ supply competence and provide effective and efficient cover for leading secret security authorities and virtual protection services in Blighty? Or is the whole practical truth and nothing but a virtual reality somewhat different and disturbing and perturbing?

Re: The Truth is an Omniscient and Omnipotent Ally and Foe, is it not?*

In a country in which Hillary The Liberal Bombardier can be a presidential candidate with her only asset being that she's a feminal state-power-worshipper instead of a male state-power-worshipper, anything can happen. … Destroy All Monsters

I agree, Destroy All Monsters, and whenever something can happen, it invariably always does happen. And a quite magical enablement of portfolios of weird and wonderful things way beyond the power and ken of traditional sources and conventional forces are happening all over the place and in cyberspace.

It is no totally bad thing at all though, unless one is into provoking and poking it evilly, and in pursuit of an oppressive and regressive inequitable advantage/intellectually challenged status quo position/banked situation.

And trying to hide and/or ignore that virtual reality mainstream merely exposes and highlights its expanding power in command and control circles and SCADA operations to presumptive powers that be in terminal decline and delusional systems collapse.

Take a whole lot of top experts in malware and make it impossible for them to get a legitimate job using their skills, while getting them seriously pissed off about it.What could possibly go wrong? .... Christoph

A probable move would be to go to work for another regime in another jurisdiction/landscape/Live Operational Virtual Environment, where such skills are highly prized and rewarded and much sought after, Christoph. Smart folk don't normally hang about doing practically nothing, do they? Well, not unless they be outrageously rewarded and prepared to do virtually nothing, I suppose.